ZAM takes a detailed look at Star Trek Online's progress since "Season 1" and looks ahead at some of the popularly-touted features of the "Season 2" update, coming in July.

In Zinkievich's latest "State of the Game" on May 21, he described the "Accolades" system as a way for players to track their achievements. "How much phaser damage have you dealt in your career?" he asked, elaborating on the new system's abilities. "How many Federation officers have you shuffled off this mortal coil […]?" In addition to "Squad Support," which he explained "will let you team up with other players who aren't in your level, and lets your effectiveness match so you can play together," Zinkievich also mentioned new balance adjustments that max-rank players have been asking for, as well as various UI improvements and bug fixes.

Of all the features in the Season 1.2 update last week, the "Accolades" system is perhaps the most ambitious; think of it as an achievement system that tracks detailed combat statistics and offers rewards for completing special missions. "Accolades in Star Trek Online are special missions that track various achievements throughout a player's career in the STO universe and unlock various rewards at certain milestones," according to the Cryptic's Accolades information page. "Players can earn Accolades for many different actions, such as defeating a certain number of enemies from a certain species or faction, completing main storyline missions, dealing damage of a certain energy type and many more."

The page explains that "hundreds" of these Accolades will be available to earn, and they aren't limited to combat-centric missions. Aside from dealing damage, taking damage and healing performed, players can earn Accolades for story-based and exploration missions. For now, rewards consist of exclusive character titles and resistance bonuses for characters and ships, although Cryptic says it will be adding more rewards as the system evolves (and also based on player input).

Another great resource, to find loads of information about past, present and future patches, is the STO release notes forum section on the official website. The latest notes, released on June 3, include every single bug fix, update and all the new features deployed in Season 1.2. However, this forum section is also handy for returning STO players—whether they were gone a couple of weeks or a couple of months—to catch up on all the new features and changes since they left.

Finally, the next major update, "Season 2," will bring a slew of new content and gameplay to STO in July; Klingon-exclusive missions, the "Federation Diplomatic Corps" (offering more exploration and diplomacy-based gameplay), a higher level cap, faction-neutral episodes, fleshed-out ship interiors and more. From what we've seen so far, it's looking substantially larger than the Season 1 update.

In ZAM's last interview with Zinkievich, "Season One and Beyond," we weren't able to pry any details about Season 2 out of him; it was still a little too early. But after a bit of poking around for more information, Zinkievich was nice enough to give us another interview this week, and this time we're determined to find out more about the upcoming Season 2, as well as a few other rumors we've been hearing. Check back with us next week for the full interview, and visit ZAM's Star Trek Online portal site for more news and information!